Wednesday, May 26, 2010

So today I snuck out for a quick trip to Goodwill. Wanted to look for more vintage sheets and pillowcases.

Score!

Found 4 pillowcases, 2 flat sheets and a vinyl tablecloth that I can use for the kids to play on...

I really love the pillowcases. Got a couple of STRIPES! Haven't found stripes before...

Realized that Goodwill is about 1/2 the price of Savers, but they're very unorganized. Things there seemed (maybe it was in my mind) to be dirtier... And they had a fraction of the selection.

I spent less than $8 toady on my new collection. Not too shabby...

Busy weekend around here, but I am itching to go to 3 more thrift stores that aren't far away... But I must wait until at least Sunday or Monday. Family from out of town will arrive tomorrow... Big anniversary party for the in-laws... Much to do, much to do...

One other idea on the vintage sheet front: I joined Freecycling. It's an online place to give stuff away and to get stuff for free. The idea is to keep things out of the landfill.

I put out a request for sheets! We'll see if I get anything from it...

Lots of my friends are participating in this neat online quilt show where we can post about a quilt that we've made on our blog... So I'm going to join in, too!

I participated a year or two ago in a batik charm square exchange at my local quilt guild. I'm a big fan of batiks and this is a great way to add variety to your stash, so I signed up for two or three sets of charm squares. Turns out that was a BUNCH...

I wasn't sure at the time what I would do with them, but shortly after receiving them, I decided I'd make a picnic quilt. My sons are 2 and 3 and I thought it'd be nice to spread out a big quilt in the yard or at the park to relax on. I wanted it to be big enough for the whole family to use at once...

There was little planning, really. I just started sewing charm squares together into long strips, then placing them on the floor.. Rather than worrying about making all of my points match, I offset the squares. I tried to make sure to not repeat any fabric on each row and to not let like fabrics touch. I added some from my stash of batiks to make it a little larger, but the vast majority of the squares in this quilt came from the charm square exchange.

This quilt was made with the intention that it'd be well-used and laundered often.

Truthfully, it's not QUITE complete yet... I've still got to finish tying it and I need to bind it, but I've stitched around the edges already.

I am toying with the notion of making another quilt like this so that each of my boys will be able to have one to call their own...

*** Update: Tonight, I signed up for FOUR sets of charm squares in an exchange my guild is doing in July. Not just any charm squares... but BATIK charm squares! So I'll be able to make a second quilt by the end of the summer. One for each of my boys. :) Am positively giddy.

Thursday, May 20, 2010

And how about I use you as my accountability partners, oh Internet people..?

Here's how I spent my day:

Up at 8:30. Hard to get out of bed. Up too late last night... Hurried shower, dressed the boys, messy kitchen to tackle while making breakfast... grumpy kiddos... Thomas the Tank Engine makes everything better... Phone call from the in-laws, plans to drive out to Baldwin City to the John Deere Tractor dealership to get Owen (my youngest) a couple of birthday gifts. He was uninterested in the kids' toys... but he was ALL OVER the big boy toys...

But big brother, Wyatt found LOTS of toys that he wanted...

Ultimately, I bought a John Deere DVD (one of our favorite things) and a big tractor. My in-laws got Owen a new John Deere ball cap and an excavator.

It was raining. A lot. And it was lunch time, so we went to get some pizza... Owen fell asleep on the way home. Too much excitement, I guess. Got the boys to bed and helped my mother-in-law with a couple of things... Then she left, so I decided to set a timer and work in my attic on some sewing.

Am trying to get blocks ready for a signature quilt for her anniversary party. With about an hour's work this afternoon and another 20 minutes tonight, I finished the blocks! Here are a couple of pictures:

I'm really happy with it! These are all 5 inches. Made from two charm packs. Love them. Must do this again for myself.

So then I did LOTS of laundry. Washed the vintage sheets I got yesterday and folded them nicely. I have a couple of ideas for them in mind...

Did Mexican food for dinner and it rained on us trying to get to the car to go home. A lot. And it's cold. 57 degrees.

Then the boys played with their daddy while I worked on more laundry (never ending)... When everyone was tucked in, I decided that I could sew for a while...

Here are a couple other things I worked on tonight:

These are the potholders I'm working on for my potholder exchange at our June KCMQG meeting. I love them. Might have to make others because I want to keep them....

And I also worked some on my red scrappy quilt. It's 120 inches by 66 inches. Needs to be 100 x 120. More than halfway there...

Then I decided I'd better call it a night...

Went to check on Wyatt and found him sleeping in a pile of toys on the floor. He always plays until he collapses... Such a sweet little thing.

Long day. Very tired. Owen's birthday party this weekend... Family in town next weekend/anniversary party. Busy times. Hope I get another chance to sew in the next week... It's my therapy. :)

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

I'm finding less and less time to quilt because I spend so much time looking for inspiration online. I spend my last 2-4 waking hours (late at night) curled up in my bed on my laptop just goofing off. Before the days of Flickr and quilting blogs (or before I knew about them, anyways), I'd have been spending that time in the attic sewing!

So for the rest of the week (or maybe just for a couple of days), I'm going to stop looking at Flickr. I'm going to stop looking at Bloglines. I'm going to stop looking at Facebook. We'll see how much I get done (or at least how much sleep I catch up on!!!)....

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

So Carla and Lauren have gotten me interested in this whole vintage sheet thing... Apparently, everyone's doing it. They're participating in a fat quarter exchange of vintage sheets! Brilliant. But unfortunately, I missed the deadline...

However, it's probably for the best because before this afternoon, I owned nothing in the way of vintage sheets...

But this afternoon, I went to Savers and walked out 10 minutes later with $45 worth of vintage flat sheets and pillowcases. Pillowcases were a buck a piece. Sheets were around $4 or $5 each.

Gotta get those tags off of them and wash them up! Then chop them up!

Unfortunately, the laundry fairy hasn't been here in several days... Had to put the kiddos in their least favorite pairs of jammies tonight because of it... and I'm starting to run out of clothes, too... So priority must be washing clothes until I catch up (about 5 loads worth! geez!) and then I'll be more free to work on my new collection.

I am thinking I'll go ahead and chop them all up into fat quarters. Then I'll keep a couple of each print in one pile for me... And I'll start up a new collection to save up for the next time they do a vintage sheet exchange...

Most of what I found (sorry I haven't taken a picture yet) were florals with white backgrounds. Would like to find more with blue backgrounds (my favorite color) and maybe other color backgrounds, as well. But today I bought all they had. Need to go to Goodwill (there are two stores nearby) and the other Savers in Leawood... But probably won't get to it until early June. I think I'll shop for some in Little Rock when I go visit some family in a couple of weeks. I also intend to raid my mother-in-law's linen closet and my grandmother's as well...

Will try to post some pictures for you tomorrow afternoon when they're all freshly washed... :)

Saturday, May 15, 2010

Friday, May 14, 2010

So my mom helped me out on the Quilt of Valor that my friends and I have made for my grandfather who was in WW II. I finished the top and she coordinated with a quilter in Oklahoma who volunteered to quilt it. Then she finished binding it for me, washed it and gave it to my grandfather (they both live about 6 1/2 hours away from me). My cousin took a picture of Tataw (he's 90) and his big sister, Mary (she's 96).

Isn't it sweet how she is sitting so close and holding his hand? She's visiting for a few days and she lives a little over an hour away from him. We are so fortunate to have so many long-living people in our family. Two of their sisters have passed away in the past few years, but they have another sister named Rena who is 92. Unfortunately, Rena has been deaf most of her life and is now almost blind because her eyesight has deteriorated so badly. She always has a smile, though. I hope I can be as fortunate as they've been and live into my 90's. Think of all the quilting I'll be able to accomplish if I have that much time!!!

So tonight was my KC Modern Quilt Guild meeting. Such enthusiasm in the group! Am so happy to be a part of something so fresh and energetic.

Had margaritas with some friends after the meeting...

And then came home, peeked in on the kids, texted the husband who was working in the basement to tell him that I needed to play in the attic and then I dashed upstairs. I've had some white flannel 6 inch squares cut out for a few days. I could hardly wait to start on a new project I've been thinking about...

Aren't they fun!?!

What do you think about the pink with it?

Or maybe I should go with some red or blue... and then I could use it for my boys on their beds... Or maybe I need to buy some flannel to back it with to make it extra cuddly...

I don't even know how many of these I'm going to make... I haven't quite finished cutting out the white squares. The fabric for the squares was leftover from a previous project...

The rest of the fabric is from my stack of squares and from my scrap basket. I could make these for days. I just love the look.

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Pictures will have to come tomorrow (too tired tonight), but I finished binding the baby quilt I made for my cousin (the ticker tape one) and also the yellow block I quilted to be a wall hanging in my bathroom. Am dissatisfied with the quilting and with the binding on the wall hanging, but it's done. Am relieved. Binding is not my favorite thing.

They'll both go in the washer with a color catcher in the morning and I'll bring them for show and tell to KCMQG tomorrow. Then Friday, I think I'll try to get the baby quilt into the mail.

Taking the boys to the eye doctor in the morning for a yearly checkup. Going solo... Hopefully the kids will go easy on me. Will bring plenty of snacks and choo choos...

Since my oldest (Wyatt) gets to be on my banner, here's a recent picture of my youngest, Owen. They're both charmers.

Sunday, May 09, 2010

I've been playing around with hexagons. Got a bunch that were already cut out from my friend, Paula a while back. I have never worked with them before. Not quite sure which method I prefer, but I've been trying a couple different ways of going about putting them together...

Saturday, May 08, 2010

So here's my version. I used a panel (I'm not a panel person... was given to me) for the back and just random squares and rectangles on the front... Will be sending it to my distant cousin who lost her home a couple of weeks ago in Yazoo City, Mississippi and then had a new baby boy the next day.

Hopefully I can tack down the binding and bring it for show and tell to our KCMQG meeting next week... and get it into the mail by next weekend!

Besides the 144 yards of fabric... I bought some colored bags to help me sort my biscuits for my biscuit quilt. Now, at a glance, I'll see which colors I need to use to make more biscuits. Want to see?

So I got a heads-up about this person locally who has an online quilt shop but is trying to downsize and opened her basement for ONE hour tonight to sell fabric for (get THIS).... $1 per yard!!! Had to buy the rest of the bolt, but WOW! I got so much stuff. Spent $144. I also got 2 bolts of fusible interfacing for 50 CENTS per yard... Oh, my. Here are some pictures...

Can you believe it?!? 3 or 4 of the bots of fabric had never been opened. Still had the plastic wrap on them! I also got a whole bolt of yellow polka dot fabric. It's very cheerful. The second to the last picture with the gold, red, light and dark blue fabrics will probably be used for Quilts of Valor. I will have a hard time sleeping tonight.